Is the grass greener in Pennsylvania?
No, I haven’t lost my mind. But after visiting an old college buddy who now lives in a sleep rural suburb of Harrisburg, I have come away a little envious.
Not of his house, a tidy and relatively spacious ranch. Let’s just call it a lifestyle thing.
Mike, who teaches political science at Penn State, and his wife, a former academic how is now a stay-at-home home, bought their house at a price that wouldn’t even get your own parking spot at a downtown Boston condo tower.
We didn’t get into the details, but I doubt if he paid half of what my wife and I shelled out for our Natick fixer-upper, which cost us $280,000 in 2002.
And that was just the start, since we have spent years fixing and revamping a century old house that, while it looked charming on the outside, was a nightmare after you stepped through the front door. There was the dingy carpet the stank, lights that dimmed when you turned on the toaster, a ramshackle gas stove you had to light with a match, and a bathroom that seemed transplanted from the local campground. And that’s just the highlights, folks.
Mike’s biggest complaint: He had to redo the kitchen. Oh, and the paint job on some of the walls was not so hot.
I am not a big fan of ranches, but here’s what sounds appealing to me. Mike, his five, and their five-year-old daughter live in his teaching salary, which since he has not yet made tenure, is hardly a king’s ransom.
My wife loves her career and has no desire to stay at home with our brood, three loveable children five and under. I launched my own freelance writing business and have been busier than when I worked at the Boston Herald as a business reporter, and that is saying something.
But still, while I love living in the Boston area, compared to sleepy town outside of Harrisburg where Mike lives, it can seem like a hypercompetitive rat race.
Yet I don’t think I’d trade his neighbors for mine. Mike, an unabashed liberal, decided to put up an Obama sign during the presidential campaign. Not long after it went up, someone tore it down.
So it’s a bit more conservative down in the Pennsylvania hinterlands. But the homes are a lot cheaper.
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My wife and I are Boston transplants originally from a rural-ish area about halfway between Philly and Allentown. Both of us went to college in PA. We moved here in 2003 but lots of family and friends are still in the area so we visit often--much to my wife's chagrin. Every now and again I find myself entertaining a notion of potentially moving back to PA and then I think of stories like your friend's Obama-sign disappearance. Philly and Pittsburgh and both great towns--but there's a whole lot of nuthin' in the middle. Pennsylvania's southern border with Maryland--the old Mason-Dixon Line--and its HUGE propensity for guns and hunting are why years ago we started referring to the state as Pennsyl-tucky and that it was "Southern by Association." That said, it is a pretty cool place and has everything for people really into outdoor recreation. The winters are more mild than here too, which is a plus. I heard some random fact a few years ago that it has more wooded acres as a percentage of the total state landmass than any other state in the union . . . .
You know the old saw, right? Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, separated by Alabama.
Marcus,
That's a new one on me. Hilarious. I'll have to use the next time I'm at home.
#2 you mean separated by part of the "sun belt" ? (just kidding.......)
I grew up about 55 north of Pittsburgh, I would move back in a heartbeat if I could. Yes it has a large number of conservatives but a nice sprinkling of liberals as well, in my experience (the state tends to trend purple). There I can talk politics with my friends that hold an opposite political view from mine and have it stay civil and remain friends. I can't do that here, which yes it does lead to a question about the quality of friends here. But I have gotten so tired of it I just don't talk politics with friends here.
I love the space and the fact that the roads are properly plowed, I have lived in MA for about 9 years now (counting college when I would go home at semester breaks) and am still amazed at the poor job that is done here by the cities and towns, and that is made worse by the people that don't know how to drive in the stuff.
I envy my sister the lifestyle she has there. And the other sister that is closer to Philly has a great lifestyle as well. I just cannot talk my born and bread DH that it is worth it, he says what about the museums? I respond but Pittsburgh has some as well and whenever I ask and plan a trip you don't want to go so why is that a draw? He says but the Red Sox, I respond Direct TV MLB package, your sister has it and it works great for her, and we can come back for games at Fenway to see your parents.
Speaking only for my experience growing up in my particular region, there was a lot less keeping up with the neighbor mentality. Granted it could have changed in the past 9 years but I don't think so. My BFF that is a professor at a college where we grew up said it is pretty much the same. Yes we run into some "hicks" but for the most part it was just people that were unimpressed by the fancy things. And hunting is great, not my thing but there was a very healthy respect for guns and what they can do, particularly in the more rural areas. I cannot speak directly to the Pittsburgh and Philly areas. For that reason I am not afraid of guns but don't want to own one.
One of the least attractive aspects of the Boston metro area has already made its appearance on the comments seciton of this entry: The Hub of the Universe superiority idea.
I came here after living in the deep south, the midwest, the west, and the DC area. All were great places to live: the weather in the west and the south, the culture of DC, the big city life of Boston that ends at 1.00am. But as a whole, this place is no different. Saugus, Brockton, and many other towns resemble the average run-down redneck town anywhere else in the country. Natick resembles any other yuppie city with its large concentration of Starbucks and high-end chain stores and Volvo driving soccer moms.. Boston, with its "better than everyone else" attitude, resembles New York or LA or San Fransisco or Atlanta or Dallas. Most people in Boston would be shocked to learn art museums exist outside of the 128 belt (or that most of the world stopped calling it 128 years ago); that world-class operas are in such redneck states as New Mexico; and that top medical facilities are located in such rundown towns as Cleveland. There are great areas everywhere in this country; and if you open your mind a little, you'll find that most Americans are the same: they want a good life for their family, they want to be left alone, and they think wherever they're from is the best place on earth and they can't stop bragging about it...
If you just open your eyes a little you'll find lots of great places to live with lots of great things to keep you happy. If you remain close minded, refuse to engage local cultures, and insist that where you came from is better than where you are, of course you'll be unhappy. Enjoy the fact you can't get Dunkin' Donuts west of the Mississippi or that the fried chicken in Boston is horrible, and use those opportunities to enjoy something local.
Takes too long to get to the ocean. I need a coast.
Michael, I can't figure out what your post is about. I do agree about Hub snobbery. But we're talking about PA, not MA. PA is a real place with a real culture. My family used to live there, ages ago. And parts of it are really a lot more, um, hick-y than you would expect from a state in the Northeast. It's real.
Katt,
That is one thing you and I agree on. I love being near the sea.
As far as PA, I'm not crazy about the food. A lot of heavy German influence and foods like chicken waffles. Just not my thing.
With respect to the cuisine as Sally just brought up--one word: SCRAPPLE. It doesn't get much better than that.
Pennsylvania is a great place. Everyone is free to move there. That's what is so great about our country. I myself wouldn't move there because there are countless software jobs here in the Boston Metro area and there are not nearly as many in Pennsylvania. Here, it's a lot more likely that I'll get to work on exciting, new & innovative products. In Pennsylvania, I could get a job like that too, but if I got laid off, I'd end up taking that job working for Comcast, making reports for their HR department. The same is probably true if you work in bio-sciences, finance and I don't know what else.
As someone who lives in the Harrisburg area I'd have to say this about the Alabama comment:
Anyone who would say that the space between Philly and Pittsburgh is like Alabama has likely never BEEN to Alabama. The county I live in (Dauphin), even went for Obama this past election. Our congressman is a Democrat. And our one Republican senator, as you would've heard, voted for the Stimulus along with two other Republicans who are from?
New England! :)
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